Thursday, March 02, 2017

My Favourite Records of 2016:

5. City Yelps –

The City Yelps Half Hour LP

(Oddbox)

Regular readers (assuming I still have any) will recall me waxing lyrical about City Yelps’ earlier releases (see here, and here), and as such, I’m happy to report that this LP is objectively brilliant, and probably the best thing they’ve done to date.

Beyond that, it is difficult to think of much else to say that wouldn’t end up repeating the content of my earlier reviews, given that the ‘Yelps (if I may) seem on course to become one of those bands who, much like Motorhead, keep on doing that thing that they do, and keep on doing it well, with such exuberance that we will never get sick of listening to them do it, allowing them to continue doing it for the remainder of our (or at least, their) lives.

Further pondering the otherwise spurious Motorhead comparison, one hopes that a similar ‘heritage’ position within the rock canon will follow in due course for City Yelps, and perhaps a similarly ‘iconic’ sartorial style and lifestyle-signifying merchandising range too - but for now, those of us with the good taste to be in on the ground floor can revel in eleven more examples of that Good Stuff that we by now expect and demand.

Recorded once again under the auspices of Mick Flower (Vibracathedral Orchestra, etc) in what I like to imagine is a tinfoil-walled psychedelic dungeon of never-ending reverb, I think this is the best-sounding City Yelps joint to date, achieving a level of gloriously over-saturated analogue cacophony that few song-based acts would even be prepared to contemplate, let alone willingly embrace.

At the same time, Sean’s vocals are also easier to discerning here, easing the burden of ear-strain for those of us primed to enjoy his acid/stoic observational barbs. Subjects broached druing the Half Hour possibly include: walking the streets in the early morning (‘We Like The Hours’), insipid music industry careerism (‘Music For Adverts’) and a characteristic celebration of the power of cheapness (‘11.99’). Or then again, possibly not. It’s still quite difficult to tell, to be honest. Much like Lemmy though, Sean’s grizzled tones are a unique gift and a statement in and of themselves, and whatever he’s on about at any given point, you can be assured he is correct about it.

Also impressive here are the band’s increasingly successful ventures into eccentric, Swell Maps-esque freak-out territory, as exemplified half-way through ‘Canyons’, when an extended ‘solo’ is executed in the form of what sounds like a recording of someone taking a baseball bat to the exterior of a glass-fronted building.

Whilst I sincerely hope that said destruction was not visited upon Mick’s premises, this angry emanation from the streets of Leeds – thematically mirrored in the shattering skree City Yelps produce more conventionally using their instruments – is nonetheless liable to gladden the heart of any Southerner who’s ever had the misfortune walk past a Foxtons estate agents on their way to some grim, employment-related assignation.

Such is the rare reassurance City Yelps offer us that circumstances still exist in which buying a cottage industry LP of indie guitar music can feel less like a Sealed Knot re-enactment of past struggles, and more like an experience that is vital, invigorating, defiant and other such words that are more normally applied to shampoo or community theatre. Take a dose of this on the morning trudge, and get that bloody life affirmed in a shower of bullshit-rejecting, window-breaking dreams.LP and download options are both still available from Oddbox.